Sanders wins readers' poll for Time Person of the Year

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has won the online readers' poll for TIME Person of the Year, beating some of the world's best-known politicians, activists and cultural figures such as Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis.
The Vermont Senator garnered 10.2 per cent of the votes cast by Time readers in the online poll, well ahead of Yousafzai, who was in second place at 5.2 per cent, and Francis who finished third with 3.7 per cent.
Sanders also placed far ahead President Obama (3.5 per cent) and ahead other 2016 candidates, including Republican Donald Trump (1.8 per cent) and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton (1.4 per cent), Time said.

"Sanders has helped define the presidential race, calling for big-ticket progressive items from single-payer healthcare to tuition-free public universities. He has mobilized the Democratic Party's liberal base and inspired massive campaign rallies across the country," it said.
He has said his goal is a political revolution that will reenergize the electorate and push big money out of politics
Time also announced the shortlist of eight candidates selected by its editors for the '2015 Person of the Year' honor, to be announced later this week. The list of eight includes ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Iran President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Google's India-born CEO Sundar Pichai were among the initial 58 global leaders, business chiefs and pop icons that Time had named as contenders for its annual honour but the three did not make it to the final shortlist announced by Time today.
No presidential candidate has been named Person of the Year prior to the end of the campaign, though a slew of presidential victors from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in (1932, 1934 and 1941), Ronald Reagan (1980, 1984) and Barack Obama (2008, 2012) have earned the distinction, Time said.